Babri demolition was just an incident: SC

The Supr­eme Court on Monday des­cribed the 1992 Babri masjid demolition as “just an incident” and disfavoured the attempt to qualify it as famous or infamous.

A bench of Justices H L Dattu and C K Prasad fixed March 27 as the date for hearing the CBI’s appeal for invoking criminal conspiracy charge against senior political leaders like L K Advani, M M Joshi and Shiv Sena Chief Bal Thackeray.

As the bench took up the matter, Additional Solicitor General began by saying that the matter was related to the “famous” Babri masjid demolition case.

On this, the bench intervened to say, “What is famous about it? It was an incident which happened and the parties are before us. It is not famous or infamous.”

The court, however, could not take up the proceedings as some of the parties could not file their
response to the CBI’s appeal.

The apex court on March 4 asked BJP leaders Advani, Joshi and other Sangh Pariwar leaders to clarify their stand before it on CBI plea seeking inclusion of the criminal conspiracy charges against them.

The probe agency had contended that the order passed by the High Court had resulted in serious miscarriage of justice and violated the principle of consolidated investigation and consolidated chargesheet.